Winning Millions Event Canceled Due to Server Issues

It was announced as the biggest online poker tournament since before Black Friday that Americans could take part in. With a $1 million guaranteed prize pool, the ‘Winning Millions’ event over on the Winning Poker Network created some hype within the community. But things went south along the way.

We have written earlier how some poker sites, especially those facing the US market, have been the targets of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks and it seems that is exactly what happened again last night. From the very first minute of play, players started experiencing technical difficulties in the form of bad lag and/or entirely losing connection to the servers.

Things kept rolling for 5.5 hours, but as the time for late registration was coming to a close, the tournament was paused and then canceled some minutes later. All players were notified that they were going to receive their buy-ins back in full as room officials felt that many of those eliminated earlier were also damaged due to connectivity issues. It was deemed that giving back the full buy-in to all the participating players was the fairest option of all.

This was, naturally, a disappointing development for players, many of whom had the first opportunity in quite a while to compete in this large of an event online. Although many were expecting a huge overlay, the turnout of 1,937 entries (with late registration still open) proved them wrong. With a buy-in of $540, the tournament was actually looking good to at least come close or reach the guarantee.

The CEO of WPN addressed some of the players’ concerns during a short conference on Twitch.tv. Although he reassured players that everybody will receive their money back and that they will do everything possible to resolve the situation in the fairest manner possible, it was clear he was very stressed and frustrated.

The frustration is understandable, as the tournament was actually in good shape to become a big success. That success was (most likely) prevented by an outside influence. These DDoS attacks typically have one simple purpose – to give an advantage to those performing them, enabling them to take chips from their powerless opponents (although there are other possible explanations as well).

It would appear from the lobby that the tournament has been rescheduled for February 22, 2015, which would make sense considering the big interest that was generated. On the other side, this should be enough of a time buffer for the network’s security team to take the necessary precautions so that these attacks can be prevented in the future.

Whether last night’s events influence players’ desire to play again is another question that WPN now must take into consideration. Whilst the first time around everybody was super pumped about the tournament, players could be somewhat reserved on the second running due to this disappointing experience.

However, if there is one thing that attracts poker players, it’s a big prize pool. In all likelihood, players will be back at it for the second go-round, as long as WPN can ensure that last night’s incident remains a one-time thing.